THE BAY OF BISCAY. 217 



sny that the carriage of those ragged aguadoras who 

 support heavy pails of water on their head, presents 

 the ease and almost the majesty of the Huntress 

 Diana. 



The men are perhaps less distinguished than the 

 women for beauty of feature, but they are in no 

 respect inferior to them in the elegance of their 

 figures and the grace of their movements. With a 

 red girdle bound lightly round his loins, his jacket 

 thrown over the left shoulder like that of a hussar, 

 with his cap set jauntily over one ear, and with a 

 stick in his hand, the Guipuzcoan looks as if he were 

 ever ready to leap rather than to walk, and when 

 with head erect and a proud glance he salutes the 

 passer by, one feels that there is a true courtesy in 

 this act, which in other places is too often tinged 

 with an air of servility. After I had become ac- 

 quainted with this population, among whom each one 

 knows how to maintain his own dignity while he 

 respects that of others, I could better understand 

 the spirit which had dictated the ancient charters 

 that were granted to this race by the kings of 

 Spain. Truly the Guipuzcoan Basques are a nation 

 of nobles. 



From my first arrival at Guettary, I had been 

 struck by the fact that the men and women never 

 join in the same sports on the Sunday. In the 

 villages whither my geological expeditions led me, I 

 had frequently had occasion to make the same 

 remark, and I almost always found that while the 

 men were playing at ball or at skittles the women 

 were dancing by themselves. This condition of 



